Synopsis
The Name Is Legendary. The Man Is Real.
Biopic about famous gunslinger Wild Bill Hickock. The early career of legendary lawman is telescoped and culminates in his relocation in Deadwood and a reunion with Calamity Jane.
Wild Bill
1995 Directed by Walter Hill
Cast
Jeff Bridges Ellen Barkin John Hurt Diane Lane Keith Carradine David Arquette Christina Applegate Bruce Dern James Gammon Marjoe Gortner James Remar Karen Huie Peter Jason Steve Reevis Robert Knott Pato Hoffmann Patrick Gorman Lee de Broux Stoney Jackson Robert Peters Steven Chambers Jimmy Medearis Jason Ronard Dennis Hayden Teresa Gilmore Janel Moloney Linda Harrison Tricia Munford Patricia M. Peters
Director
Producers
Writer
Original Writers
Casting
Editor
Cinematography
Additional Directing
Production Design
Art Direction
Set Decoration
Stunts
Composer
Costume Design
Studios
Country
Primary Language
Spoken Languages
Alternative Titles
Wild Bill - Uma Lenda No Oeste, ביל הפראי, ワイルド・ビル, La llegenda de Wild Bill, Дивият Бил, Villi-Bill, Ο Θρύλος της Ντακότα, Vad Bill, Divlji Bil, Дикий Билл, Vahsi Bill, Dziki Bill, Divoký Bill, Дикий Білл, Salvaje Bill, 西域枪神, 와일드 빌, Divlji Bill
Genre
Themes
Releases by Date
Theatrical
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USAR
16 Aug 1996
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Germany16
Releases by Country
Germany
16 Aug 1996
- Theatrical16
USA
01 Dec 1995
- TheatricalR
Popular reviews
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Action! - The Unlikely Rumble: Hill v Hyams
Walter Hill's Western adventures continue with a new story based on one of the Wild West's numerous icons. However, unlike his other works in the genre, the filmmaker attempts to give it a unique touch.
Indeed, the picture is heavily influenced by The Third Man's fascination with dutch angles, and sections of the film unexpectedly turn black and white, looking like something out of a film akin to Natural Born Killer, albeit less aggressive in style. Hill classified this picture as a "Psychedelic Western," and while it never quite reaches the level of a film like El Topo, the vision shifts and changing camera positions certainly serve to give it a surreal…
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A biopic that psychologically tortures its subject with his own myth. In between Hill's patented deafening gunshots and terse masculinity, he torments Wild Bill in blown out S-VHS black-and-white flashbacks, like he's re-witnessing his past through the glaucoma clouds that are decimating his aim along with old age. This is what happens when you only know one or two people you didn't kill.
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Wild Bill was one of the few films on Walter Hill's filmography that I hadn't seen. And that was a surprise, especially as I'm a firm fan of Hill and a sucker for Westerns too, but this is underseen here on LB, with less than 3K views, and I think I know why. 1995 wasn't a good year for Westerns, but when you throw $30 million dollars at a project, you want to see exactly where it was spent, and I for one couldn't quite see it.
Wild Bill Hickok is another of those historical names made famous by tales of his exploits in newspapers back East. Hill's film however is a mish-mash of historical facts, a fair bit of…
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america loves the fantasy of the exceptional individual, a heroic napoleonic conqueror who imposes their will upon a chaotic and meaningless world with their sheer wit and immense violence
but what if that fantasy was real? what if that exceptional person was a real, living human?
could they live with themselves, with their violence?
could anyone else live alongside such a monster?
could the real world afford such a fantasy?
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a suitably freewheeling biopic of someone who exists more as a myth than a man, with Walter Hill seamlessly weaving from handsome (and violent) studio western fare shot on 35mm to black and white video sequences that serve as drug hazed flashbacks — it’s perhaps Hill’s most alienating move to date, turning the western genre in the mid 90s (in the same year that we got The Quick and the Dead) into something that feels decidedly of the 70s in approach and execution
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Walter Hill obsesses about the end of a 'hero', who is defined by the deaths he trailed in his wake, and whose deeds can be summarized as shooting a bunch of fools in the street.
I was taken aback early as the film zoomed through a bunch of Wild Bill violent exploits and wondered if Hill's goal was to make an IZO style catalogue of western violence, but it was merely table setting for Hill to get to the film's centre: An elegaic stretch of Bill slumping through Deadwood haunted by his regrets. It's a little too muddied to work as well as it wants to, but Hill's decision to shoot Bill's hazy flashbacks on what appears to be early…
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"'Scuse me whilst I pull up my pants!"
Bridges keeps this from feeling as watered down as it by every other right probably is, a broken down gunfighter going blind and whose opium dreams are all shot on video. Ellen Barkin and David Arquette evidently hooked up during filming, very interesting given the dynamic of their one shared scene!
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A little underrated. Walter Hill does some interesting visual things in Wild Bill, especially with the action, and the world looks fully lived in - dusty, muddy, creaky. The cast is also great. Bridges, Barkin, Hurt, Lane, Carradine, Dern, and Gammon are all fantastic in their work. Arquette... is not - he's completely out of place and time in the film and as a crucial character that really hurts the enjoyment. The other element that really drags Wild Bill down are the flashbacks. I don't mind the idea of digging deeper into the main character, his origins, and the reason for his ultimate downfall, but stylistically they don't work. The black and white extra grainy shots using canted angles are distracting, momentum stopping, and just plain ugly. It's such a shame when the rest of the film is shot so well. Much better than it's reputation, but still lower tier Hill.
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A character study burdened by voiceover (which simply inserts unnecessarily a sympathetic point of view) and a bad pacing, a showdown that long overstays its welcome (when making a biopic about someone who dies in a famous manner, dragging out said death does not create tension or drama). Those even vaguely familiar with Hickok's life might be frustrated with the liberties taken, but the fever dream effect it creates to be following along this distorted, broken narrative of opium dream flashbacks and probably flourishes on a legend's life before it's even over is heightened by those liberties. The tone of the film is painful, intentionally so, complete with the brusque, macho denial of that pain built into it. Wild Bill's…
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I love a good acid western! I have always sort of steered clear of this one due to its mostly negative reviews. But being a Walter Hill flick, I wanted to check it out. And I actually liked it quite a bit! Bridges is the second best portrayal of the legendary gunslinger behind Keith Carradine in Deadwood. I think it’s sort of funny and ironic that Carradine plays Bill Cody in this one. Back to Bridges, he portrays Hickok as a very complex man, which I’m sure he really was. Imagine being called out by so many people, just because of your reputation. Hickok was a fascinating character. The rest of the cast is a murderer’s row of excellent character actors. Lots of “that guys”. Oh, and since it’s a Walter Hill flick, the action scenes are absolutely killer. I had a lot of fun.
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after watching Deadwood and Keith Carradine’s calm, steady, bloody and nihilistic performance of a weary man who just wants to drink and gamble away his last days, this one falls pretty short, especially since Keith Carradine (and about 1/3 of the cast of fucking Deadwood anyway) is in this and nowhere near as good. it’s a real fucking who’s who of character actor and that guys (fucking Marjoe shows up! fucking Starcrash forever, baby) and some Walter Hill moments but all stretched far too thin for far too little. a forgettable movie about a western icon. at least we’ll always have Extreme Prejudice.
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Half delusional, half haunted, Walter Hill's Wild Bill takes historical "revisionism" to insane heights, splintering the idea of Western heroism into a thousand pieces. Psychology and legend intertwine throughout Hill's kaleidoscope visual aesthetic, where the dirt and grime of Bill's colorized present spins out of control to include blown-out black and white memories, and back again. The signs of genre demolition are apparent from the very beginning, as Charles Pince's (John Hurt) raspy voice echoes like a god over Bill's well-attended funeral procession. "By luck or design it had fallen to him to play the hero's part," Pince futilely states as the coffin passes his perch, the irony being that nothing in the following storyline will resemble that of an…
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